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News

Greywater Webinar – September 23rd

September 1, 2021 by Sustainable Fairfax

Graywater Webinar – September 23rd.

Washing machines are among the top three water users in your home – about 22% of water use.

Reclaim water from your washing machine to use for your garden by installing a graywater system. Marin Water is holding an introductory webinar with The Urban Farmer Store on September 23rd. Laura Allen, lead author of “The San Francisco Graywater Design Guidelines for Outdoor Irrigation”, will host and give an overview on how to get started with a Laundry-To-Landscape graywater system. To register early for the webinar visit this link.

Marin Water offers $100 discount on greywater kit. Application

For more Water Conservation Tips and Resources

Filed Under: News, Water Tagged With: gray water, grey water, Slide, slider, Water conservation

Sustainable Fairfax Benefit Recap!

April 13, 2017 by Jennifer Hammond

On April 1st, 2017 we hosted our annual benefit at the Marin Museum of Bicycling in Fairfax! The event brought over 100 people together from the Fairfax community and beyond to enjoy a fun evening together in the beautiful museum space.

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ENTERTAINMENT: Jack Irving offered his lovely acoustic tunes early on and the Fairfax Funsters of Funtime, a talented community band led by Robert Powell, inspired lots of dancing throughout the night. The April Fools fun was offered up by David Haskell and Kiki La Porta who challenged the audience to a questionnaire of Fairfax history (answers to be posted soon!).

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AUCTION: Our silent and live auctions were a big success and featured over sixty items. See Ellauri of Key Tea/Open Secret Bookstore was a masterful auctioneer and inspired some lively bidding! The sexy hotness sleeping bags, modeled by Renee Goddard (see photo), were won by Taste Kitchen & Table owner Lorenzo Jones.

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E-BIKE RAFFLE! We were thrilled to feature a Kalkhoff electric bike, generously donated by The New Wheel, for our raffle this year.  We sold 889 tickets, and the winner was… drum roll… Peter Laques! Peter played with the Fairfax Funsters band all evening and also serves on the Fairfax Town Council.  He was shocked to win the $2k bike and even rode the bike home from the event. Other raffle winners included Sam Jones and Pat Eklund for items donated by Boreas Gear!

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Nate Byerley of The New Wheel traveled from Arizona to join us and announced their new Bicycle & Car Trade-in program!  Believe it or not, you can trade in a car for credit towards an electric bike. This program aligns nicely with the Sustainable Fairfax ReduceX2 program which encourages less car trips per week.

More Thank You’s: Donna’s Tamales, Grilly’s, Jasmine Market, Miyoko’s Kitchen, Sorella’s, Lagunitas Brewery, Marin Brewing Company for food and drink. Also thanks to Marin Sanitary Service, Flynn Riley LLP and North Berkeley Investment Partners for generously helping with event expenses. The Marin Museum of Bicycling. And rock star volunteers Lynette Carlton, Lexi Neely (our intern!), Allison Ritter, Stephanie Schipper, Kat Steele and Laura Vernon.

Sustainable Fairfax is grateful for being a part of an engaged and connected community, and thanks everyone who has supported our mission over recent years. We look forward to continuing with more education, activism and conservation in the years ahead!

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Filed Under: Community, News

Take our Short Survey- We want to hear from you!

February 17, 2017 by Jennifer Hammond

Please take our Sustainable Fairfax Survey to let us know what sustainability topics you care about, including those you would like to work on, and those that are most important to our community.

As a thank you, you will be automatically entered to win a Sustainable Fairfax grocery bag.  We will draw for the winner of the bag after we reach 50 respondents.

Thank you!

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Slide

Youth Blog: Hunger in Marin- What Can You Do?

February 7, 2017 by Jennifer Hammond

Despite being one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, Marin County has a widespread population of people who are food insecure. Food insecurity is the state of living without reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. Food insecurity is having to choose between impossible decisions like having the food you need or having shelter and a place to live.

There are nearly 50,000 people in Marin County who are food insecure, and worry about where their next meal is coming from. In Marin, over 16,000 seniors are food insecure. Many seniors have a difficult time getting access to fresh produce and affording nutritious foods. In a recent survey of 3,000 seniors, 46% report running out of money for food each month. On top of this, 3,500 seniors over 65 have annual incomes below the Federal Poverty Level of $11,670. These alarming and distressing facts demand change and require community effort to ensure that everyone in Marin has access to fresh, healthy, nutritious foods.

Marv Zauderer, founder of ExtraFood, came up with one solution. The United States has an extremely high rate of food waste, at a rate of over 40% (Zauderer). That means for every ten apples you buy, four of them go rotten! This rate of food waste is unacceptable, given the number of people in our local community who are food insecure on a daily basis. Zauderer founded ExtraFood because he witnessed how many people in this county were food insecure, and wanted to ease people’s worries about where their next meal was coming from. So much food was not being eaten and Zauderer realized how this “creates unnecessary waste and is bad for the environment.”

Zauderer decided to tackle the issue of food waste and food insecurity by creating a system to recover fresh healthy food that would normally go to waste and donamovato_packingte it to someone in need. ExtraFood picks up excess fresh foods from organizations and businesses and delivers them immediately to various nonprofits that serve Marin’s population of hungry people. The foods that they deliver include fresh produce, prepared food, eggs, meat, dairy, packaged goods, and baked goods. According to Zauderer, “ExtraFood delivers food to more than 5,000 people per month to over 80 different sites around the county.” In three years of operation, ExtraFood has delivered over 900,000 pounds of food collected from over 150 donors to almost 83 different sites in Marin. This includes 13 new food programs they have started with their partners to expand the safety net further. ExtraFood has made 11,000 deliveries and continues to regularly supply food to Marin County. Zauderer explains that every donation counts, even the smallest contribution can make a difference.

Another local organization working to take action against hunger in Marin is The Fairfax Food Pantry, co-founded by Holly Bragman. Bragman food_pantryhelped create The Fairfax Food Pantry in 2011 because she noticed that there was a need for this service in the Fairfax community: 25% of the participants of the San Geronimo Valley Community Center Food Pantry were from Fairfax. Bragman decided to open up the Food Pantry in Fairfax because transportation is often very difficult for people who are food insecure, and this new location would provide more central access to healthy nutritious foods. Located in the Fairfax Community Church, The Fairfax Food Pantry feeds over 130 families every week. According to Bragman, “the Pantry receives donations totaling 5,000 to 8,000 pounds of food per week.” These foods mainly include protein like meat, fresh veggies, fruit, and other staples for the everyday kitchen. If they have extra food at the end, they often give it to other locations or organizations like St. Vincent’s. Bragman’s vision is to act locally, helping the community through a system that includes Fairfax Volunteers, the Town of Fairfax, and the Fairfax Community Church to create an easy and accessible way for people to obtain healthy, fresh foods.

What can you do? You can support ExtraFood by committing to volunteer as a “food runner” and deliver healthy food to those in need. You can also help by encouraging other Marin businesses and organizations to donate their extra or leftover food. (For more information visit: ExtraFood.org) To support the Fairfax Food Pantry, you can donate money, sign up to volunteer, or something as simple as dropping off empty paper bags from 8:30-11:30 a.m. on Saturdays at the Fairfax Food Pantry. (For more information visit: FairfaxVolunteers.org)

Together we can help solve hunger in our local community by making small changes to our consumer behavior, and making a conscious effort to help those in need.

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Filed Under: News, Take Action, Youth Blog, Youth Corner, Zero Waste Tagged With: hunger, Slide, youth blog, zero waste

List of Weekend Marches & Rallies

January 18, 2017 by Jennifer Hammond

Since there are several local rallies and marches happening this weekend, I thought it would be helpful to summarize them all in one place.

Here’s the list I have for Friday and Saturday:

1)  Friday, Jan 20 (Inauguration Day), Bridge Together Golden Gate– 10am-noon

Participants will form a human chain across the Golden Gate Bridge in a “peaceful demonstration and performance art piece” beginning at 10 a.m.

2)  Friday, Jan 20:  Marin is Marching!

People’s March & Unity Rally- for Love, Peace, Justice & Truth. This event is being organized by members of the Marin community.

Schedule: 

1:00 pm- Gather in San Anselmo (at the HUB/Creek Park) OR in The Canal (at Pickleweed Park)
2:00 pm- Groups March from East and West to San Rafael City Hall
3:00 pm- Groups Arrive at San Rafael City Hall for Unification
3:30 pm- Unified Group Walks from City Hall to Community Center
4-6 pm-  Unity Rally in San Rafael Community Center Auditorium, 618 B St, San Rafael  (Kid-friendly event with a kids activities room adjacent!) 

Volunteer:  If you want to help out before or at the march, contact Craig Slater (415 721.7241)

3)  Friday, Jan 20: 6:30-7:30pm- “An Inauguration Day Interfaith Gathering”

First Presbyterian Church, 1510 Fifth Ave., San Rafael

Join Congressman Huffman and religious leaders to celebrate religious freedom, social justice and community engagement. The event is free and open to the public. Tables will be provided to share materials for volunteer opportunities. Please bring materials to share.

Please note the event will also be live streamed on www.facebook.com/rephuffman.  Register here.

4)  Saturday, Jan 21: 10am- Fairfax Parkade

Fairfax residents are organizing a “standing” march in solidarity with the Women’s Marches across the country. They will not be marching to another location, but will be showing their support together downtown. (Note: I do not know of any marches in Marin on Saturday)

5)  Saturday, Jan 21: 10am-3pm- Women’s March in Oakland

Schedule: 

10am: Meet at Madison Park, Oakland

11am: March to Frank Ogawa Plaza (2 miles)

12:30-3:00pm:  Rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza

6)  Saturday, Jan 21: 3pm-8pm: Women’s March in San Francisco

Schedule: 

3-5pm: Rally at SF Civic Center

5-8pm: March to Justin Herman Plaza (1.7 miles) (Note: there will be no official event at the end of this march)

**Take Golden Gate transit with Sustainable Fairfax to the SF Women’s March. Lynette Carlton, our Fairfax on Foot organizer, will lead the way. Meet at the downtown Fairfax bus stop at 1:45pm. Find out more info here.

DC WOMENS MARCH: I will be attending the DC march and will be reporting from the march via the Sustainable Fairfax social media accounts. Be sure to follow Sustainable Fairfax if you want my updates at:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SustainFX

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainfx/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SustainableFairfax/

These events were created to bring people together to stand in solidarity with the other marches all over the world aiming to protect civil liberties, civil rights, women’s rights, LBGTQI rights, immigrant’s rights, the environment, healthcare, education and other important issues. By coming together in such great numbers, we will show the incoming administration that we are unified, engaged and ready to take a stand for what is right.

Be safe, and enjoy all of the passionate and energized people participating in these historic marches!

Filed Under: Community, News, Policy, Transportation, Youth Corner Tagged With: fairfax on foot, reducex2

Collecting Supplies for Standing Rock Sioux

November 6, 2016 by Jennifer Hammond

The STANDING ROCK SIOUX are in need of many items to sustain them in their fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Local Fairfax resident Peter Anderson has recently returned from a 3-week trip to the reservation to support them, and will be returning soon to bring them additional supplies.

SUSTAINABLE FAIRFAX IS HELPING PETER COLLECT ITEMS that are on on their supply list. In terms of clothing, they ONLY want very warm, good condition coats, sweaters, and other winter wear and insulated Carhartt type coveralls, overalls and coats. They also need heavy duty tarps, lighters, sleeping bags (only 0 degree F or lower), fur blankets, battery packs / solar chargers for charging phones, tents (that can stand up in high winds, snow, subzero temps), and small wood stoves. For a full list of supplies requested, see http://sacredstonecamp.org/supply-list/. (Note: firewood is being handled locally).

Please bring your items to Sustainable Fairfax, 6 School St, Suite 150 on Wednesday, Nov 9th between 11am-3pm, or you can deliver directly to Peter Anderson’s house at 19 Claus Drive in Fairfax (behind Museum of Bicycling)- leaving items on the porch is fine.

Filed Under: News, Policy

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